Weeping as you did,
had you not spread out your wings
over us, my lord,
I would have stayed in the nest,
an egg that never was hatched

Meaning

Had you not wept and spread your wings over us, I should have stayed in the nest, an egg that never hatched.

Commentary

Part Three: Hashihime

　Naka no Kimi added this after her father and her sister. The Eighth Prince had raised the two girls by himself, and she puts her gratitude for that into the figure of a parent bird with its young. The exchange closes here, and the years the three of them have spent leaning on one another at Uji are fixed in the reader's mind.

　To spread wings over is the parent bird sheltering its nestlings, and stands for her father's protection. Sumori is an egg left in the nest that never hatches, and carries the sense of ending before one has begun. Where the elder sister spoke of the hardness of their lot, the younger turns to thanks, and the difference between the two, which later chapters set against each other, is already visible in this exchange.

Author

Murasaki Shikibu

Source

Genji Monogatari

Other

Weeping as you did, had you not spread out your wings over us, my lord, I would have stayed in the nest, an egg that never was hatched

Weeping as you did,
had you not spread out your wings
over us, my lord,
I would have stayed in the nest,
an egg that never was hatched